Preparing

Lesson
Plans
This job aid is designed to help you prepare effective lesson plans. It will:

provide brief guidelines for planning each stage of a lesson

select appropriate teaching techniques

provide sample templates that are useful for planning lessons.

®
Telephone: (604) 432-8927
BCIT LEARNING AND TEACHING CENTRE
Fax: (604) 431-7267
3700 Willingdon Avenue, Burnaby, BC, V5G 3H2
Web site: http://www.bcit.ca/ltc
Preparing Lesson Plans

What is a lesson?
A lesson is an organized set of activities designed to present one manageable sized piece of your
course. Don't confuse lesson with lecture as it is commonly used in the expression lecture/lab
when describing course hours. You may have more than one lesson in a 50 minute lecture or
lab. A lecture is just one teaching technique that you may use in a lesson.

The stages and flow of a lesson

Each lesson should be a complete segment in itself, providing new learning. Try to keep your
students in mind as you plan your lesson—ask yourself:
• Who are they?
• What do they already know?
• Why should they learn about this?
• What must they learn?
• What must they do to learn?
What the instructor and students do varies at the different stages of a lesson. Each stage should
flow smoothly into the next, which builds on it.

2 • Instructional Job Aid

 Preparing Lesson Plans

Guidelines for making a lesson plan

You need to pay attention to different aspects of instruction at the different stages of the lesson. When
preparing a lesson plan, use the following checklist:

At the beginning, I plan to:

1. Use a bridge-in to capture students’ interest and motivate them
to learn ................................................................................................. ❑
2. Make the learning outcomes clear. ....................................................... ❑
3. Assess prior learning and student expectations .................................... ❑

In the middle, I plan to:

1. Use strategies to actively involve students in the learning process ....... ❑
2. Use a variety of media to illustrate concepts and processes ................. ❑
3. Ensure that the lesson flows easily and logically .................................. ❑
4. Ensure that students are learning material that is meaningful
and new ................................................................................................ ❑
5. Provide opportunities for practice and feedback ................................... ❑
6. Review and build on related material .................................................... ❑

At the end, I plan to:

Provide the proper closure students find important. To do this, I will:
1. Assess what students have learned ...................................................... ❑
2. Summarize the lesson ........................................................................... ❑
3. Connect the lesson to real life and/or the next lesson ........................... ❑

Using the appropriate technique

The techniques you plan to use in your lessons depend on:
• the types of students you have and their previous knowledge
• your physical teaching environment and the available equipment and resources
• the type of learning you are aiming for.
Some of the possibilities are listed below.

To convey information, use:

• lecture • field trips
• discussion group • interviewing an expert
• selected reading • case studies
• demonstration by an expert

Instructional Job Aid • 3

Preparing Lesson Plans

To provide balanced presentation of a controversial subject, use:

• discussion group • panel discussion
• selected reading • simulation
• debate

To involve people, use:

• discussion • written work
• field trips • case studies
• role playing • group work
• guided experience

To teach a skill, use:

• demonstration by an expert • shopwork
• labs • guided experience
• practice with feedback (coaching)

To pool thoughts and ideas, use:

• discussion • brainstorming
• group work

To reinforce memory, use:

• drill • memory aids
• practice with feedback (coaching) • written work

Resources you can use

If you need help with any of the steps in your checklist, you can use one of the following
instructional development job aids:
• Increasing Student Motivation
• Managing Student Behaviour in the Classroom and Lab
• Making Large Lectures Interactive
• Preparing and Using Student Handouts
• Preparing and Using Overhead Transparencies
They can be obtained from the Learning Resources Unit. Also, colleagues in your own
department may have suggestions to help you to develop lesson plans that are well suited to
your subject matter and students.
The following pages contain three types of templates that are helpful for planning lessons.
Adapt them to your own needs.
At the end of the job aid is an example of a filled-out, three-hour lesson plan of type I.

4 • Instructional Job Aid

 Lesson Plan I

Learning Outcome:

Estimated Time:

Outcomes/Key Points Steps/Activities Resources/Comments

Instructional Job Aid

Preparing Lesson Plans

• 5
 Lesson Plan II

6 •
Lesson Title: Resources Time

Bridge-in (Motivation):

Instructional Job Aid

Preparing Lesson Plans

Pre-test:

Learning Outcome(s):

Instructor’s Activities Learner’s Activities

Post-test:
 Preparing Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan III

Learning Outcome

Sub-outcome(s)
(optional)

Stages Instructional Content Media

Strategies

Beginning

Middle

End

Instructional Job Aid • 7

 Learning Outcome: On completion of this session of the ISW course, participants will be
able to relate instructional processes to learning processes.

Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Outcomes/Key Points Steps/Activities Resources/Comments

1. Define learning. • group writes brief definition of OHT: “Learning”

learning
• discuss our definition

2. Describe a model of the learning • lecture/discussion OHT: “Learning Process Model”

process • ask for examples of short & long
term memory

3. Identify the three stages of the learning • lecture/discussion OHT: “Learning Process Model”
process and relate to the events of (re Stages)

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

instruction.
• motivation
• guidance
• practice

4. Identify least to most effective reten-

tion methods and link to favourite • students guess percentages of OHT: “How much do we retain?”

the BCIT Learning and Teaching Centre, British Columbia Institute of Technology.
instructional techniques. retention
reading/listeningèsay/do something • general discussion

©1996, revised 2003 BCIT Learning and Teaching Centre • British Columbia Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of